A Lifetime of Service: Grant Cushinberry
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Grant Cushinberry’s desire to serve others probably started the moment he was born, but, according to his son, Garry, people really started to notice this trait after his service to his country as a combat medic in WWII. Stationed in the South Pacific, Grant found himself diving into a foxhole during a bombardment of shells by the Japanese. Finding himself already on his knees, he began praying and promised God that if he made it out of that foxhole alive, he would spend the rest of his life doing everything he could to help mankind.
God answered his prayer, and thus began Grant’s lifetime of service.
Grant moved to Topeka after serving in the military and began working for the Colmery-O’Neil VA Medical Center, where he would serve veterans until he retired more than 30 years later. Having grown up during the depression, Grant was no stranger to hard work. He would work the night shift at the hospital from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and then go home and fire up the trash truck he owned and haul trash from 8 a.m. to noon. In the summer, he also ran a lawn mowing business, often supervising his sons from the shade of a tree.
“I think that might have been the only time dad slept during the summer hours,” Garry Cushinberry said. “I never saw anyone work harder than my dad.”
It was during one of those trash routes that Grant noticed how much food grocery stores were throwing away because the “Sell By Date” had passed. The food was still perfectly good, but the stores had to dispose of it. Once again, that desire to serve came to bear.
FEEDING THE HUNGRY
Grant spoke with the grocery store owners and arranged it so that instead of throwing the food away every day, they would set it aside on pallets for him to pick up. Grant would then distribute the food to those who needed it most.
That endeavor soon evolved into a visit to the local bakeries to ask for their day-old bread. As more food was being distributed, Grant realized a need for more fresh produce. “God’s little half acre” sprang up from there. He planted vegetables in the corner lot where he also passed out the other food items he had collected.
Grant could never stand to see people go hungry and believed no one should eat alone, especially on Thanksgiving. When he saw people eating from garbage cans along his trash route, he started an annual community Thanksgiving dinner. About the same time, Pauline Johnson and Addie Spicher began their own Thanksgiving community dinner held in a little church on the east side of town. As word got out that there were two places feeding people during the holidays, they decided to combine the events and thus the Community Thanksgiving Dinner was formed.
“I heard my dad talk the talk his entire life,” Garry said, “but I also watched him walk the walk. He was never one to ask for anything. He used to always say, ‘if you want a handout, it is right there at the end of your own arm—go do something with it.’”
Garry watched his father turn a profession that most people didn’t respect into one that he was incredibly proud of. When people saw that bright purple trash truck with the white wall tires and the sign “Here Comes Cushinberry” on the front bumper, they waved and paid their respects to a hard-working man doing an honest day’s work.
He treated everyone the same regardless of race, profession, or socioeconomic status. Grant was also known for reaching across racial lines. Even though he was raised during the depression and experienced segregation, he never dwelled on it and never said a disparaging word.
“Dad always used to tell me we are all one race, and that’s the human race,” Garry said. “He used to pick up trash at a hotel that sold rooms by the hour, where local drunks would hang out to get the last dregs out of a bottle,” Garry said. “He would go from there to the governor’s mansion to pick up their trash. He gave those bums in the alley the same respect as he did the governor of the state of Kansas.”
No matter how busy he was, Grant always found time for kids. He was known for filling his old pickup truck up with watermelons and taking them to local schools. When school ended for the day, the kids were treated to all the watermelon they could eat.
“Of course, that meant hours spent loading all of those watermelons onto the truck,” Garry recalled. “But that was just part of how he taught us to serve others.”
NURTURING THE COMMUNITY
Grant was always a jokester. He loved making fun of himself and was known for having a saying that fit every occasion. That is one reason people always seemed to congregate at the Cushinberry house. The other reason was the basketball court he built in the backyard, complete with goals and a streetlight that allowed the neighborhood kids to play late into the night.
“Dad had a rule that everyone had to leave when he left for work at 10 p.m.,” Garry said. “What he didn’t know was that everyone just went around the corner and waited for him to get out of sight, and then they would all come back and play some more.”
Grant used his sayings as a way to share some wisdom with those around him and to instill a sense of pride in a hard day’s work. He used to tell people that the harder he worked, the luckier he became, and that the grass wouldn’t always seem greener on the other side of the fence if they would water their own lawn.
Garry recalls one time joking with his father that in Grant’s effort to serve others, he was giving away his children’s inheritance. Grant simply responded, “I’ve given you a good name, and that is worth more than anything money could buy.”
That good name resulted in numerous honors and awards including the 1975 Humanitarian Kansas of the Year from the Topeka Capital-Journal, The Governor’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Award in 1989 and the American Legion Award. Washburn University conferred an honorary doctor of humane letters on him in 1994, and his name lives on in the historic Cushinberry Park located across the parking lot from the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site.
Grant Cushinberry passed away on July 1, 2008.
